「私のせいじゃない、よね?」 (Watashi no Sei ja nai, yo ne?)
“This Isn’t My Fault, Is It?”

Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? celebrates its 20th episode by giving us a general idea of how many of the world’s current struggles are the end result of Kumoko’s efforts to infiltrate human society. Although she only wanted to do what’s best for little baby Sophia, she bites off more than she can chew when her problems go beyond just being able to beat whatever strong opponents come her way.

It’s actually very interesting for Kumoko to have to take on some more introspective struggles outside of combat. Mainly, it’s figuring out how her actions end up factoring into the geopolitical sphere of the world that surrounds her. All it takes to kickstart a massive war with Sophia’s town is for Kumoko to get her revenge on a diplomat from the Kingdom of Ohts who appears to also be attempting a hostile plot against Sophia’s family. But from there, Ohts consults all of their neighboring villages, including the Kingdom of Hall, to fuel what looks like the beginning of the human world’s ongoing battles that will last well into the future.

And this all happens shortly after she gets a warning from the demon administrator Guiliedistordiez (or Gilly-Gilly) that she’ll end up putting both herself and the demon world in a tough spot if she continues interacting with humans. Although she sticks by her guns on both her human interactions and being unable to control the Body Brain that is attacking Ariel, it was a nice, cordial conversation between two people that felt bad for each other.

Because their circumstances force them to be unable to give each other the responses they would’ve wanted, it ended up not being as hostile or bitter as it could’ve been. Gilly-Gilly is guilty that Kumoko got roped into all of this, to begin with, and that he’s placing high expectations on her to restrict herself after having struggled to escape the labyrinth. Meanwhile, Kumoko feels guilty because Gilly-Gilly is kindly trying to keep the peace and avoid triggering a long, drawn-out battle that would be a major inconvenience for him and his boss. On top of all of this, even if she wanted to bury the hatchet with Ariel, her lack of control over her Body Brain makes it so that there wouldn’t be an answer she could give him that’d give him a sense of relief.

On Shun’s side, we get a better understanding of where Filmos is coming from and why she played a role in abducting the reincarnated students. Predictably, the limitations of the skill that only allow her to have a list of the students that live and died while keeping their cause of death a secret would feed the misunderstanding that she was pleased with having them trapped in a prison camp. But that’d be the unfortunate consequence of being reincarnated as the daughter of Potimus, making it so that the one person that would listen to you and help you save your students would be a vicious tyrant who gets something a little more out of kidnapping reincarnations.

But ultimately, the human side looks like it’s gearing towards giving us a war arc as Hugo’s army starts making their way towards Shun. Similarly, the ending gives us a gist of what Ariel’s army will end up looking like as they all begin to converge on a messy battlefield. Time will tell how these battles will fare, but for now, it’s looking like things will be heating up in the next episode as the present-day global conflict amps up.

12 Comments

    1. Filmos might not have had him imprisoned in the forest camp to avoid the forests where Hugo would be potentially murdered off, but with all of the forests he’s excited to visit, it might’ve been too early for her to celebrate.

      Choya
  1. This week on spidergirl
    T+1 (approx) timeline Ohts sends a real anti-diplomat to secure runaway spider beasts, and he succeeds magnificently in REAL task, that being procuring casus belli for Ohts.
    At the cost of own life, no less. what a deciated idiot…
    Meanwhile Gilly-gilly (yup I, gonna stick with Kumoko-given nick) shows up to discuss sitiation between Ariel and Kumoko. I guess Kumoko would love to dientangle herself from Ariel’s vengeance, but she is simply unable to since she has no comms and way to extract the Artist formerly known as Body Brain from inside Ariel…
    I think eventually ariel will catch up to Kumoko and some resdolution will happen…
    T+15 We get story of our adroable Elf-sensei. I guess she did good considering her limited options. But Elf King definitely has own very secret motivation towards whole kidnapping reincarnations business…
    And as Hugo’s army advances on Elf village, we have final confirmation that Sophia is acting on Ariel’s orders. all the while other Ariel’s commanders are beginning to move. Hey, is it me or one is former assistant to Sophia’s father?

    ewok40k
  2. I followed the recommendation in the comments sections of the previous episode and am all caught up now. The series ist just too popular, so I had to give it another chance after only watching the first half of episode 1 back in January. At first the CG was ugly and Kumoko a bit annoying. But it helps that the human stuff is mostly in 2D and I watching her fight her way out of the labyrinth was fun, although it took longer than expected.
    There are still some clichees like Hugo being that generic evil character hellbent on vengeance, but at the end he’s just a tool that you expect to disappear soon enough making room for those that are important.
    As for the latest episode, it was a good display of Kumoko’s social awkwardness. She could have avoided the war if she wasn’t so bad at talking with (real) ppl. Does D not count though because it’s communication by using telepathy?
    Anyways, I guess I’ll have to read the LN if I want to know what happened to her after those 15 years. Early on I was pretty sure that she had to be the white girl. Skills and colour of appearance match up, but my current guess is that future Kumoko just hasn’t fully appeared yet. Maybe white girl is only part Kumoko that has amnesia.

    boingman
    1. I just just skip a lot of the humans part that have Hugo and his friends… They are just boring characters. I wish the series was 100% Kumo-chan going insane.

      André
  3. This episode revealed a few interesting things about the isekai side. Looking at Filimos’ skill, it looks only one person was crossed out. Kogure Naofumi, who is apparently a boy! Doesn’t that mean admin “D” is actually a boy?

    Also, when looking at the previous list which is divided by gender, apparently all the girls have been accounted for. With Wakaba Hiro apparently dead, it only leaves two boys from the class left. Black doesn’t seem to be one of them too. So does that means Kumiko was a guy like Katia in the previous life?? Fei seems to have gotten it good in hind sight.

    After Kumiko’s explanation this episode, I really think White is “body brain”. Just interested to see how she became so mellow.

    theirs
  4. I think the two major points raised in the anime to date are.

    1) D admitting to Kumoko that she was a part of the class but wasn’t physically there at the time of the explosion.

    2) The anime showing a random spider in the classroom several episodes back(It took up the entire frame and was only a few seconds). They wouldn’t show that for nothing.

    Lyfe
    1. Would be interesting to know whether the classroom spider was also mentioned in the LN.
      Don’t think that it has anything to do with Kumoko, unless her memories of being a hiki girl were fake. But I agree that you would think that there must be a reason why the anime showed it.

      boingman
    2. I’ve read the Wiki for the anime, and yes, those two things are related.

      And here’s pro tip: you can read the Wiki and get all the spoilers you want. It actually made the anime more interesting to me because now I know the logic behind everything, but I don’t know exactly how the events are gonna happen.

      So know who Kumo will become, but I don’t know how it’s gonna happen (because I didn’t read the entire Wiki, of course lol). So the anime looks way more interesting to me now.

      André
  5. [quote]On Shun’s side, we get a better understanding of where Filmos is coming from and why she played a role in abducting the reincarnated students. Predictably, the limitations of the skill that only allow her to have a list of the students that live and died while keeping their cause of death a secret would feed the misunderstanding that she was pleased with having them trapped in a prison camp. But that’d be the unfortunate consequence of being reincarnated as the daughter of Potimus, making it so that the one person that would listen to you and help you save your students would be a vicious tyrant who gets something a little more out of kidnapping reincarnations.[/quote]

    My question is how accurate is that skill that their fate would be set in stone.

    [quote]But ultimately, the human side looks like it’s gearing towards giving us a war arc as Hugo’s army starts making their way towards Shun. Similarly, the ending gives us a gist of what Ariel’s army will end up looking like as they all begin to converge on a messy battlefield. Time will tell how these battles will fare, but for now, it’s looking like things will be heating up in the next episode as the present-day global conflict amps up.[/quote]
    Well ,we’ll know the white girl’s name eventually.

    ordnance11

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